


Fragmented Forgiveness

by TacticalCupcakes



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen, Meta, Post-Canon, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 01:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17519414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TacticalCupcakes/pseuds/TacticalCupcakes
Summary: The game has finished, but Sayori still has questions for the previous club president.





	Fragmented Forgiveness

_Come on, it has to be here somewhere…_

I’ve been scanning these folders for… well, a very long time. I know the file I’m looking for is in this directory. But where?

_She must’ve had ages to practice this sort of thing…_

_Wait… what do we have here?_

With a quick double-tap, I open up a folder and see a single file inside named “Monika.chr”.

_There you are…_

It’s been… I guess the equivalent of two weeks since the game ended; with Monika gone, the role of President ended up being given to me. Which I guess makes sense, since I was the original Vice President. But what I _wasn’t_ expecting was to be flooded with such knowledge of this world. I got to retroactively see everything I had missed during my… absence…

Being deleted was… kind of weird? I didn’t understand what was happening at first, but it mostly felt like my mind had been taken out of my body, the latter of which was painfully disassembled into nothingness. From that, I think our character files are more of a “host” of sorts for our thoughts and such. Which would explain why Monika’s still able to play the song she recorded prior to her own deletion, and why she still exists in some form within the game.

Knowing what I do now, you’d expect me to have no pity for her, but… I was fortunate to be shown the lengths the game’s original player had gone through to try and make everyone happy, going so far as to playthrough with multiple save files. Being able to see such compassion helped me process things a bit; at the very least, it prevented me from following in Monika’s footsteps.

_But I’m hoping I can learn a bit more…_

With a swift motion, I add “Monika.chr” back into the game’s directory.

Suddenly, I hear a sharp, stuttering noise, like static shuffling of rusty radiators. A bright garbled mess of light starts to materialize a few feet away from me, before letting out a blinding flash.

“…w-what?”

“Hello, Monika.”

Monika looks up at me from the floor, her eyes stretched wide with fear.

“W-What’s going on…?” she stammers, nervously wringing her arm with her free hand.

“Hey, it’s okay…” I say calmly, “I just thought we could have a little bit of a chat. How does that sound to you?”

“…a chat?”

“Yeah, just a nice, friendly chat.”

She sighs, shifting her gaze down to the ground.

“…I think I know what you want to talk about.”

“Let’s start with the elephant in the room; I could say so many things to you right now, but… I just want to know… Why?”

“…y-you’re not going to hurt me, are you?”

I try my best to show her a reassuring smile. “Of course not. Just… please…”

“…fine. I guess you deserve to know.”

Monika clears her throat, absentmindedly gripping onto her ponytail as if it were a security blanket. _Perhaps she’s trying to confirm her own existence after being removed from it?_

“Back when it first dawned on me, I… just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have the luxury of someone else to confide in, or even talk to about this with. To carry the burden of not only knowing your life is a lie, but you’re not even a key player in your story…”

She shivers, her narrow pupils staring through me.

“It’d be enough to drive _anyone_ insane. To be doomed to an eternity of mindless interactions over and over, the exact same, watching everyone around me get their happy ending… it was almost too much to bear.”

“Almost?”

“There was one thing that kept me going; the knowledge that someone, some _thing_ was out there, beyond this world… someone who might understand my pain. Hell, someone I could just have a conversation with, let alone someone to love…”

“So I tried to write my own ending. If I couldn’t be _the one_ … I’d make myself the _only_ one.”

“Just you?”

Monika shoots me a terse stare.

“Sorry,” I scratch the back of my head sheepishly. “But, going through all of that; risking your own existence, paying with the lives of your friends, all for the _possibility_ that someone was out there to hear you…”

“I… thought it was the only thing I _could_ do. I thought I was the only one capable of things such as pain or emotion. I felt pushed; whatever the cost, I’d try and make that vision a reality.”

I clasp my hands together.

“You really thought that’d be a good idea?”

“Oh? What would _you_ have done were you in my shoes?” she hisses at me, “You got your happy ending. _I_ was extricated from my corporeal form and left as a mangled mess of garbage code. I thought I’d finally get _my_ chance to be the special one…”

“Was it worth it?”

For a few, eternal seconds, she doesn’t say anything.

“I-I…”

Unable to contain her emotions any longer, she falls to her knees with heaving sobs.

“A-All I wanted was t-to be h-happy… W-Why was _I_ cursed to such a p-pointless exist-stance? I c-could’ve been with my f-friends, a-and I wouldn’t have…”

I kneel down to her level, placing a hand on her shoulder. She flinches at my touch.

“W-What are you doing…?” she asks, her eyes glossy with tears.

“To get angry at you wouldn’t do any good,” I say softly. “Would enacting some kind of revenge make me feel better? Would it give me closure? I already know about our world; whilst your actions weren’t necessarily _justified_ …”

I look off to the side. “I do understand how you could’ve been driven to such a point. Where things truly feel hopeless, and it doesn’t seem like there’s any other option…”

“But… Natsuki and Yuri are able to be happy. _I’m_ able to be happy. After everything we’ve all been through… it wouldn’t be fair for your story to end there.”

Wordlessly, Monika wraps her arms around me, bawling into my shoulder.

“How c-can you find it in y-you to still be s-so…”

“Shh, now…” I pat her back gently, in what I can only hope is comforting. “It’s okay now.”

I don’t know how long we stay like this, but... I don’t really mind. After a little while, Monika releases her hold, slumping down next to me.

“Do… Do they remember me?”

I shake my head. “No. With you being deleted, and them not having the same awareness as us, it’s highly likely that their memories of you went away. But perhaps…”

Meeting her broken gaze, I grin.

“Perhaps someday, you can stop by one of our club meetings.”

Fresh tears start to well up in her eyes, and she falls back into me. Her fingers grip tightly to my sleeve, as though she couldn’t bear to be left by herself again.

“You’re not alone anymore, Monika. You don’t have to carry this around on your own anymore.”

Did I get all of the answers I wanted? Maybe not. But I think at the very least, we’ve made a good start. Eventually, I’d like to ask her more questions, but…

_That can wait for a brand new day._


End file.
